The CAC sponsors this blog for everyone in the Mount Diablo Unified School District community who has an interest in special education and students with special needs.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

MDUSD HOPE Needs Your Donations

Dear Friends,

I am writing to let
you know about children in our community who do not have enough to eat, adequate
clothes to wear to school, or a predictable place to live. As the holiday season approaches, please accept this letter as an invitation
to learn more about our local homeless children and foster youth. I would like to ask that you do two
thingsA) please consider making a contribution to
homeless children and foster youth and B) please forward this letter or email to five or more people. Thank you so much!

Last year, the
Mt. Diablo Unified Homeless Outreach Program for Education (Mt. Diablo HOPE) served
549 homeless students and Mt. Diablo
Foster Youth Services served 236 foster
youth. That’s 785 vulnerable
children who need our support!Most of the homeless children we served lived
with mothers and fathers who were one paycheck away from homelessness, lost
their jobs, and had no choice but to live in motels, cars, homeless shelters, churches,
synagogues, the Winter Nights program, or double
up with friends or family. We saw an increase unaccompanied teenagers (58) who
lived with the families of friends. Homeless children and foster youth with
disabilities were especially vulnerable and received extra support. Mt. Diablo Unified has great success
supporting foster youth – we have the highest graduation rate in California (93%),
however, the holidays are often a difficult time for foster youth who live in
group homes and with foster families. Your
contribution will go a long way toward making the holidays a little brighter
for our children.

Homeless children and foster
youth reside in communities and attend schools throughout our school district;
we serve homeless students and foster youth from Walnut Creek, Clayton,
Pleasant Hill, Concord, and Bay Point. People may not realize how widespread
our populations are because they are not visible in the community. Over the years, we have
received generous donations from our teachers, parents, Local One - CST, CSEA district
office personnel, PTSAs, Mt. Diablo school board members, members from every union
/ bargaining unit in our school district, and students themselves. We are
grateful to the teachers of Mt. Diablo Unified for their compassion, hard work,
and the excellent instruction that they provide for our students every school day. As support staff,we assist children with life stressors that can interfere with
their education.

Please consider
donating gift cards to Safeway, Target or
Kohl’s. You may send donations by check
or gift cards to: Elsa Dalpiaz, Secretary, Mt. Diablo Homeless Outreach
Program for Education, 2730 Salvio St., Concord, CA 94519 or; drop donations off
with Lori Amentaat the Mt. Diablo Unified
District Office, 1936 Carlotta Drive, Concord, CA. Please
make checks out payable to “Mt. Diablo HOPE.”Please indicate if you would like a receipt for tax purposes. Kohl’s,
Target, Safeway, or giftcardsto
other storesare helpful because
they are easy to distribute and allow students and families to choose their own
gifts, clothes, or food.

This year, we are
going online to connect generous donors with recipients. If you or your organization would like to sponsoran individual family, please register online www.mdusd.org/hope. To sponsor a family, the minimum contribution
that we suggest is $150. By the way, we
don’t use the term “adopt a family” for the holidays because the word adopt can
have loaded meaning for foster youth.

Last year, the small act of sharing this
letter resulted in contributions from all over the world.

Thank you for
your consideration!

Yours truly,

James C. Wogan, LCSW, Administrator,
School Linked Services & The School Linked Services Team

CAC Documents

Blog Archive

Contribute to the blog!

We welcome submissions of relevant articles, links and list items! Please send submissions by email to the blog committee or email us at mountdiablocac@gmail.com for review. We will notify you when your article will be posted or contact you for editorial review. Articles should be no more than 800 words, be relevant to special education issues and have content that builds community knowledge about educating and caring for students with special needs.

The articles and adverting is not sponsored by the CAC Blog and opinions are not necessarily those of the CAC Blog or the committee members.

Find Us On

Books and Movies

The Mind Tree: A Miraculous Child Breaks the Silence of Autism (Hardcover)